My video card's fan is about to die D: halp please!Follow

Thats going to be way small for your card. Chances are you'll melt something important. It may be better to try and salvage the origional fan if ordering a good sized replacement from performance-pcs.com or similar won't work for you.

Assuming the fan itself isn't cracked or damaged, you can usually revive them by simply blowing all the dust out of them with a compressed air can. If the fan isn't turning smoothly after that, look at it closely and see if the bearing housing looks deformed or heat warped. If it looks ok, try cleaning the actual fan spindle with a bit of rubbing alchohol ona cotton swab, then dab a small drop of mineral oil back on the shaft spindle and let everything dry overnight. That will usually do the trick. If it doens't this one will work http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=29867 though you will need a seperate heat sync for the voltage regulator too.

Not spray can WD40, but any other think mineral based oil that can be applied with a dropper should work. I've used "valve oil" - oil made for brass instrument valves. (Not "trombone grease" which is thicker and made for slide instruments.) Just plain mineral oil from the store should work, too. Organic based oils like cooking oils (canola oil, olive oil) are more volatile and may evaporate over time, so that's not quite as good.

Edited, Jun 22nd 2011 11:23am by catwho

You won't need much at all. Use an eye dropper, or if you don't have one, a very tiny brush. If the ball bearings and tiny axle of the fan are not visible and buried under plastic, wrap a strong cotton thread around the invisble part tightly, and then roll the rest of the thread in the oil. You can then slide the fan up and down the thread a bit to coat the hidden metal bits. Just be very careful not to break the thread off inside, as that will obviously cause more problems than it solves.